The Melania Problem

We’re more than a day into the plagiarism issue, and it seems to follow the pattern of most other things in this presidential election and/or the world today: It’s a dangling object that consumes a moment of time and soon passes. But the problem is one that is endemic in the Trump campaign and that should have #NeverTrump types getting a second look, even at this late date.

The Melania Problem isn’t Melania, it’s the whole campaign. And it underscores why conservatives shouldn’t fall into line too quickly even though Trump is the now-official nominee of the Republican party.

Whatever the latest dismissal of the controversy over the speech, the campaign’s first response was the most telling and probably the most honest: “​In writing her beautiful speech, Melania’s team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking. Melania’s immigrant experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which made it such a success.”​

Fragments reflect her own thinking.

With no judgment on Mike Pence, I suspect Trump’s pick there was something similar. Fragments of his thinking reflect Trump’s own in some instances. Given Pence’s most recent moment in the national spotlight on religious liberty, however, the choice seemed to betray a certain unfamiliarity with the voters Trump presumably wanted to court with the Pence pick and a lack of desire to buttress weak foundations in his own thinking on issues that reach to the very heart of faith, family, and freedom itself.

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The unforced error, as they say, that was the Melania Trump speech, and its inevitable side-by-side play with Michelle Obama’s speech of eight years ago, gave me a flashback to earlier this month, when President Obama’s FBI director essentially gave the Trump campaign a gift in his non-indictment indictment of Hillary Clinton. But on that day, instead of playing the videotape from James Comey himself, in his own damning words, Donald Trump instead made headlines praising Saddam Hussein’s impatience with the rule of law and processes of exacting justice when it came to terrorists.

While the liberal media were accused of blowing things out of proportion, what about the fact that it would seem a Trump supporter can’t even expect the candidate to say the obvious politically winning thing to say? If you can’t even take that as a given, how are you going to trust him on other matters great and small? Especially on the all-important issue of Supreme Court justices, which is the reason many people tell me they are voting for him (even as so much damage has already been done by the Court for so many decades).

It’s the rebuilding of American culture — in the homes and churches and schools and communities — that we’ve got to get serious about, rather than pinning our hopes on presidential candidates as saviors — or at the very least destroyers of the processes that have led us to our current state.

#related#I understand that we are in need of some changes. Fundamentals like life and religious liberty — and thus, liberty itself — are suffering in our society. I know many good people who are pro-Trump — some adamantly, some hesitantly, but pro-Trump all the same. I don’t pretend to have any good answers in this election. I don’t have any secret candidate to sweep in and save the day. I respect people’s freedom to do as their well-informed conscience guides them. But apart from mere party loyalty, I’ve been hearing a number of disquieting themes: justification in the face of two bad choices, a hardening on social media and in interpersonal relationships, a feeling that as long as one votes one’s duty is done. I hate to see conservatives — and religious believers in a particular way — look like cheap dates when it comes to Donald Trump. He has a lot more than fragments of instances that would warn us that we had better not expect too much in the way of trust and coherence and a steady hand.

This is a time for choosing. Not only about what we will do on Election Day, but about how we will contribute to a revitalized republic. The renewal is to be found at the front lines of liberty: a robust civil society and people serving others in gratitude to their Creator. With some real investment of time and resources and treasure, we might even see these trends trickle up to make a real difference on the national scene.